Rupert Murdoch Goes on Twitter Rampage Targeting Obama, Google

Going down the road well trod by the likes of Charlie Sheen and Kevin Smith, the News Corp. CEO let loose a multiple-message Twitter rant over the weekend, targeting President Obama and Google over anti-piracy legislation that the White House said it would not support. Google responded to the multi-tweet barrage, calling Murdoch's stance "nonsense."

Murdoch was apparently responding a White House statement that amounted to hedged opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, which proposes to give the government the power to cut off pirate sites from services like Google searches and PayPal as well as alter how the Internet recognizes those domains so even users manually typing in the URLs won't find them. While the White House admitted piracy was a "serious problem," it said it would not support legislation that "undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet."

The rant began early Saturday evening, when Murdoch posted the following tweet:

So Obama has thrown in his lot withSilicon Valley paymasters who threaten allsoftware creators with piracy, plain thievery. -

Murdoch, as the head of a major media company, clearly has a large stake in the realm of online content and piracy. Murdoch has said or implied on many occasions that he considers even aggregating or linking to stories to be piracy, which is exactly what he did when he lumped Google into his pile of perceived piracy enablers with a subsequent tweet:

Google responded yesterday with a statement to CNET, saying, "This is just nonsense. Last year we took down 5 million infringing web pages from our search results and invested more than $60 million in the fight against bad ads... We fight pirates and counterfeiters every day."

There's also the question of exactly what Murdoch is talking about. As many (including journalism professor Jeff Jarvis) have noted, saying that Google "streams movies free" is twisting and oversimplifying many facts. Google streams lots of content for free via YouTube, of course, but it's aggressively policed for pirated content. As revealed in his next tweet, Murdoch appears to be equating streaming with having links turn up in a Google search:

What's your take on Murdoch's outburst on Twitter? Does he have a point that Google and others should not link to pirated content, even if he is flimsy with his facts? Or does he simply fundamentally misunderstand online content? Let us know in the comments.

BONUS: 8 Celebrity Social Media Meltdowns

TwitCelebs

Ashton Kutcher

Kutcher got into hot water last month when he fired off a tweet defending Penn State coach Joe Paterno after Paterno was implicated in a scandal related to assistant coach Jerry Sandusky’s alleged history of sexually molesting children. “How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste,” the tweet said. Later on, Kutcher tweeted, “Heard Joe was fired, fully recant previous tweet!” and “Didn’t have full story. #admitwhenYoumakemistakes.” Shortly afterwards, Kutcher announced that he was turning over the management of his Twitter account to Katalyst Media, a firm he co-owns.

Gilbert Gottfried

Comedian Gottfried, who is known for pushing the envelope (he was the first mainstream comedian to joke about 9/11 -- just three weeks after the attacks), tried out some material about the earthquake/tsunami that hit Japan in March, just a few days after the tragedy hit. Within a day or so, Gottfried lost his gig doing the voice of Aflac's duck in that company's commercials.

Chris Brown

The volatile singer deleted most of his Twitter timeline last month after he got sick of fans' comments about his ex, Rihanna, whom he was charged with assaulting in 2009.

Anthony Weiner

The former Congressional rep from New York was caught tweeting a lewd picture of himself to a Seattle student named Gennette Cordova in May. Though Weiner initially denied the charge, on June 6, he admitted it and eventually lost his seat.

Sinead O'Connor

O'Connor quit Twitter in November because she was "getting too much abuse," according to The Daily Mail. The singer, best known for her 1990 hit "Nothing Compares 2 U," also blamed fans for taking her sex-related comments "too seriously." (O'Connor offers more in a NSFW rant on her website.)

Kenneth Cole

The designer/brand name upset fans in February with a /tweet that made light of the Arab Spring. "Millions are in uproar in #Cairo," he wrote. "Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at [link]."

Micky Arison

Arison, the owner of the Miami Heat, was fined $500,000 in November for tweeting about the NBA lockout. Arison's comment was innocuous, but violated an agreement with the league not to discuss the matter in public.

Photo credit: Alec Baldwin at the premiere of "Evelyn" at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, Ca. Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2002. Photo by Kevin Winter/ImageDirect.

Mashable
is a global, multi-platform media and entertainment company. Powered by its own proprietary technology, Mashable is the go-to source for tech, digital culture and entertainment content for its dedicated and influential audience around the globe.